Make a heck of a customer visit facility, employee housing, and best practices, how-to, energize people to work, drought, fires, traffic, and housing $ not withstanding.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Still Planning Return to In-Person Work in September, Despite Employee Complaints
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
100% agree. However, we are talking about humans and then it is not so black and white anymore. An excellent leader create happy and productive worker. I have yet to see unhappy worker being productive. What bother me is that people think these are whiners when they only express a wish that suits them. It is called communication and that is central for good workplace environment. If the company and the employees not come to terms, the employees will leave and the company need to restart activities. That takes time and money.
Exactly. Dismissing all these people (who are probably the reason most people here like Apple products in general) as “mid-level drones” is the most eye rolling capitalist thing I’ve ever read. When you stop having regard for human life to that extent and start rallying around the corporation - buddy you’ve been watching too many ads and WWDCs, these companies got you bent hard
3 days in office us already very generous. If it's not because of the pandemic, there would be 5 days in office unless special request was made.
My company is doing the same thing. Required 3 days a week.
I agree that there will be a huge wave of people quitting.
They keep saying that they want to hear people's concerns but when people mention the Delta strain of Covid, asian hate and that vaccinated people can not wear masks but still carry and transmit the virus from the world and their un vaxxed kids, they say "lots of other companies are doing 3 days so we will too".
Nobody is irreplaceable. Someone doesn't fit in should go no matter how talented they are.
First and foremost, employees who don't work when at home office, are usually not that productive in the office either... (unless the reason for unproductivity is induced externally, such as kids - but those people usually WANT to come to the office anyway). If there's an attitude issue they are not loyal employees and need to be fired either way. The problem is not remote working, it's simply that the wrong people have been hired. Period.
Secondly, everyone claiming that those lazy guys should now come back to office and start working are either bad employers or questionable empoyees. As an employer, if you can't trust your employee to get the job done it's your and only your fault to hire that person. Meanwhile an employee who was in home office claiming people should get back to office to actually work should have an appointment with HR. Clearly they either judge others from their own attitude or they know employees who mistook home office for vacation and didn't communicate it. Either way, there's an issue that needs to be discussed...
Generally, people believing that in the digital age people need to sit in a regular office (no special equipment, no customer contact,... only regular PC work) 5 days a week 8 hours a day didn't make it into the 21st century.
Especially, in the software industry there are a lot of introverted people who are probably a lot more productive working from home at the time which suits them best -which may very easily NOT be 9 to 5.
That is essentially different from many other industries and need to be taken into consideration. Especially since the "performance" (or lack thereof) can be rather easily measured on the various collaboration plattforms especially when it comes to coding. I don't see how having those kind of people work in a crowded office increase the productivity.
That said, ~2 office days/week can help a lot with coordination, however, beyond that IMHO the overhead on time spent commuting and so on takes over. E.g. just halve an our spent commuting per day (= 15min one way, which is extremely optimistic) adds up to 2,5 hours per week.
If that's done by car that extends to less traffic, less pollution,...
Instead those 1,5-2 hours gained can be used in a meaningful way.
Last but not least, allowing people to work remote doesn't mean they have to. So, for people who believe that working in office is better than from home, just do so... but don't force your own personal preference on others, it may not be the case for everyone.
That comes from someone who prefers a 50:50 mix...
Secondly, everyone claiming that those lazy guys should now come back to office and start working are either bad employers or questionable empoyees. As an employer, if you can't trust your employee to get the job done it's your and only your fault to hire that person. Meanwhile an employee who was in home office claiming people should get back to office to actually work should have an appointment with HR. Clearly they either judge others from their own attitude or they know employees who mistook home office for vacation and didn't communicate it. Either way, there's an issue that needs to be discussed...
Generally, people believing that in the digital age people need to sit in a regular office (no special equipment, no customer contact,... only regular PC work) 5 days a week 8 hours a day didn't make it into the 21st century.
Especially, in the software industry there are a lot of introverted people who are probably a lot more productive working from home at the time which suits them best -which may very easily NOT be 9 to 5.
That is essentially different from many other industries and need to be taken into consideration. Especially since the "performance" (or lack thereof) can be rather easily measured on the various collaboration plattforms especially when it comes to coding. I don't see how having those kind of people work in a crowded office increase the productivity.
That said, ~2 office days/week can help a lot with coordination, however, beyond that IMHO the overhead on time spent commuting and so on takes over. E.g. just halve an our spent commuting per day (= 15min one way, which is extremely optimistic) adds up to 2,5 hours per week.
If that's done by car that extends to less traffic, less pollution,...
Instead those 1,5-2 hours gained can be used in a meaningful way.
Last but not least, allowing people to work remote doesn't mean they have to. So, for people who believe that working in office is better than from home, just do so... but don't force your own personal preference on others, it may not be the case for everyone.
That comes from someone who prefers a 50:50 mix...
As someone who's ran a remote team for the past 8 years, this isn't just something you implement over night or even over a year's time.
I'm sure Apple will have more remote positions eventually. But if these employees weren't remote to begin with, then the best asset they have going for them right now is that they are local because that's what Apple currently values.
To put it a different way, California is super expensive to live in which is why some engineers are making 500K+. If Apple wants to open up remote work, over time, they might as well reevaluate every single remote position that's offered to people outside the Bay Area too. If you're Apple, why would you want to pay an engineer 2x what someone else is the midwest can do it for? Or even outside the US for that matter? Hate to say it but companies want the best talent for the least available cost. Location doesn't determine talent.
Wonder if these people would be willing to take a pay cut to work remote? I'm guessing not.
I'm sure Apple will have more remote positions eventually. But if these employees weren't remote to begin with, then the best asset they have going for them right now is that they are local because that's what Apple currently values.
To put it a different way, California is super expensive to live in which is why some engineers are making 500K+. If Apple wants to open up remote work, over time, they might as well reevaluate every single remote position that's offered to people outside the Bay Area too. If you're Apple, why would you want to pay an engineer 2x what someone else is the midwest can do it for? Or even outside the US for that matter? Hate to say it but companies want the best talent for the least available cost. Location doesn't determine talent.
Wonder if these people would be willing to take a pay cut to work remote? I'm guessing not.
No, I'm not actually, and it's not the way 'I' want them to work, it's the way their employer wants them to work
To be honest, the amount of work lost or not lost won't be known until next year most likely. Especially the hardware. Software is obviously something that can be done remotely but working on teams is also easier in person.
Certainly not when the situation is simplistically characterized as that.
Personally, as a physician who has gone to work non-stop for the past 1 1/2 years throughout this whole thing to be around people who are KNOWN to have COVID, this is just slightly ridiculous.
Awww man that must have been tough for you, I’m really sorry about that. It makes the most sense to want everyone else to suffer through the same thing for sure 🙄🙄🙄
If you are a twenty something or even thirty something nowadays you need to be energized in a corporate environment. What do u do hang out with mom and dad all day or alone in an apt? Doesn’t seem too healthy to me….
But then again Phil Schiller probably doesn’t come into the office unless he wants to. Besides he is just management. Does he actually do anything that someone else there in management or his administrative staff couldn’t continue with the very next day? What if the core engineering team (the actual engineers not the managers) for Apple Silicon suddenly decided to all resign to go work for a startup. Sure they could be replaced eventually but how long of a set back would that be.
Asking what the repercussions are of collective disobedience is a futile hypothetical
that’s like what if everyone pulled all their money out of the banks at once? It wouldn’t be good
Some people have families to feed and mortgages to pay though and other obligations so just going with your desires isn’t really realistic
If your team is unable to be productive and found a need to meet in person, it sounds like there's a need to reexamine the work process and internal tooling. All the architects in the teams I've worked in the past few years been 100% remote.
And all the tech support issues were resolve within the first 30 days of office closing. If people are still having technical issues months after pandemic started, something else is the problem....
My work teams didn't get to this point of smooth remote work in a day. A lot of the foundation for working remotely happened slowly over the past few years. We've reached the point where releases doesn't require anything more than a quick 5 mins call to look at if there are blockers.
All of this still happen in remote, but when people 'want' to. I think people have gotten know their coworkers better than they did prior to the pandemic.
There's that word again. 'fit' / 'cultural fit'. That might have worked 2-3 years ago, but the industry culture has changed and lot of workplace research has shown it's just a way for employers to generalize discrimination.
The real internal question should be: "What is taking us so long to find that 1 right person?". A company of any scale shouldn't be just sitting around waiting for people to apply to an open positions. HR people and internal recruiters should be actively finding the right person. If they're taking 6 months, then maybe 'they're' sitting at home not doing their job?
I hate to break it to you, but even government agencies are moving to a hybrid of remote and on site work. Not everyone has to do all of their respective work in a SCIF....
When it comes to the workplace, even the intelligence community is going ‘hybrid’
Human capital leaders in the intelligence community say the new hybrid work environment will prompt a cultural shift in how managers and supervisors communicate with employees and set expectations about performance and promotions.
federalnewsnetwork.com
I don't pay people to be in an office. I pay people to work. Some of those travel for work, some of those used to work in an office, some still do. I don't give two xxx where they do it. Just do the work.
As long as you work, is what you mean.
If you think company is paying you for traveling to the office, then you and I have a very different definition of 'work'. 🤣
A false equivalency, the pandemic completely proved it was possible to work from home in many instances that were not truly known before. While my personal stance is that in office work is great and valuable, just calling out how ludacris this logic is.
It's like asking, were people complaining about traveling across the country by car, before planes?
Article specially says three days a week. That's not 100% of the time. Apple does not have a lot of middle managers.
Apple's just shifted from 5 days per week in the office (except for specific home-working contracts), to three days per week. That's a major shift from a company as large as Apple. Employees have a right to voice their concerns and opposition, but realistically the company can set the policies, and it can make exemptions where it feels it doesn't hurt the work there.
The letter they wrote to Tim said that without the flexibility to work from home, they might have to leave Apple. But none of them were hired to work from home originally. They all applied to and got jobs knowing they'd be working 5 days a week in the office.
"...employees said that without the flexibility of choosing between remote and in-person work, they feel they have to choose between "either a combination of our families, our well-being, and being empowered to do our best work, or being a part of Apple."
Yeah, they do. Lots of people across the world are coming to the realization that large corporations with in-person jobs is not where they want to work. They had already chosen Apple over their families when they accepted the jobs, because remote work was never part of their employment contract.
Well you can tell Tim Cook, and other CEOs and other managers who want an RTO that there is a need to reexamine the work process and internal tooling. One size does not fit all.
True, company was prepared for this on day one, so there was no 30 day resolving support issues.
True, but that doesn't solve the issue of collaboration. Unless you are a heads down coder where collaboration is not needed.
Can't say that across the broad spectrum of business in the world. Getting to know my cooworkers better seems revolve around face to face contact, working out in the gym, being in meetings face-to-face joking, etc.
A company for good reason can be picky and not settle.
I'm assuming people in a capacity of Senior Director, SVP, and/or other management title have already figured this out and don't need us MR posters telling them how to their company should be run.A company of any scale shouldn't be just sitting around waiting for people to apply to an open positions. HR people and internal recruiters should be actively finding the right person. If they're taking 6 months, then maybe 'they're' sitting at home not doing their job?
But to me it seems the unwillingness to understand different companies, different requirements and then to deflect that into people don't know what their doing....is not where any of this stands. I've seen statistics on what it costs and employer to totally on-board a person new to the organization...and it makes sense to ensure the right person is being hired. But YMMV.
Y'all talk about "getting work done" and "I don't care where you do it, as long as it gets done" and people "realized they could get their work done remotely, so it should be fine"....that's all well and good, but again, you are missing the key point of why an office exists.
I'm not worried about my team getting their "work" done (whatever that means), I'm worried about the ideas, the "spark", inspiration, whatever that I will never know DIDN'T occur because they didn't have that casual conversation with their teammate or see something outside of their home office or on the street to inspire them.
I KNOW people can work from home...it's what I DON'T know or the missed potential/opportunities that scares me.
I'm not worried about my team getting their "work" done (whatever that means), I'm worried about the ideas, the "spark", inspiration, whatever that I will never know DIDN'T occur because they didn't have that casual conversation with their teammate or see something outside of their home office or on the street to inspire them.
I KNOW people can work from home...it's what I DON'T know or the missed potential/opportunities that scares me.